Euro elections: the extreme center takes a beating
- By John Sexton
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E-mail China.org.cn, May 28, 2014
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UK Independence Party (UKIP) leader Nigel Farage (C) reacts as the South East England region results of the European Parliament elections are declared by the returning officer at Southampton Guildhall in Southampton, southern England, on May 25, 2014. Farage said his party was on course to cause a political "earthquake" as it took the lead in the European parliament election in Britain. [Xinhua photo] |
![UK Independence Party (UKIP) leader Nigel Farage (C) reacts as the South East England region results of the European Parliament elections are declared by the returning officer at Southampton Guildhall in Southampton, southern England, on May 25, 2014. Farage said his party was on course to cause a political 'earthquake' as it took the lead in the European parliament election in Britain. [Xinhua photo]](http://images.china.cn/attachement/jpg/site1007/20140528/001ec949c22b14ef9ef40f.jpg "UK Independence Party (UKIP) leader Nigel Farage (C) reacts as the South East England region results of the European Parliament elections are declared by the returning officer at Southampton Guildhall in Southampton, southern England, on May 25, 2014. Farage said his party was on course to cause a political 'earthquake' as it took the lead in the European parliament election in Britain. [Xinhua photo]")
In Britain the UK Independence Party topped the popular vote with 27 percent support, a performance almost matched by the extreme right Front National in France.
A press hunt for bigots and fruitcakes among UKIP's candidates did it no harm at all. In France, media chatter was how Marine Le Pen had steered the Front National in a respectable direction. But her father, Jean-Marie Le Pen, was available during the campaign to nod and wink to the party faithful that the beast had not really changed its spots. The Ebola virus, Le Pen père said, could solve France's immigration policies. For the rightist parties, facing both ways on the race issue is undoubtedly a conscious tactic to draw in both the ultras and the squeamish.
But it is not just the right that has profited from voters' disillusionment. The huge vote for Syriza in Greece shows that there are millions of people in Europe who no longer automatically accept the mantra that the solution to the problems of capitalism is more capitalism.
How will the mainstream parties react to the hemorrhage of support, assuming it carries over into national elections? For the center right parties, the path of least resistance will be to tack to the right and toughen up anti-immigration policies.
The more interesting question is how the center left parties will react. Will they continue to drift with the floating voter, or can they reconnect with their core support and make a serious attempt to reinvent social democracy? Here, we might say, cometh the moment, cometh the man. Thomas Piketty's much-twittered Capital in the 21st Century, is precisely an attempt to revive the social-democratic agenda. Picketty backs up with detailed argument and historical data the widespread feeling that social inequality is getting more extreme. But despite consciously adapting the title of Marx's magnum opus, he is no revolutionary. He was economic advisor to French Ecology minister and Socialist Party big-hitter, Ségolène Royale, during her 2007 presidential campaign. There can be few people better placed than him to provide the intellectual underpinnings for a revival of reformist politics.
The question is will he find any takers among the social democratic leaders. There is massive inertia keeping the mainstream parties on their old centrist path, not least vast industry of think tanks, NGOs, PR firms and spin doctors. And even the newly-elected Eurosceptics will draw their salaries from European institutions.
The author is a contributor to China.org.cn
Opinion articles reflect the views of their authors, not necessarily those of China.org.cn.
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